A product footprint is the potential environmental impacts of a product system expressed in amounts of one or more impact category indicators. This term is synonymous with Life cycle impact assessment result (LCIA result), environmental profile, and eco-balance.
The product footprint represents the outcome of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment phase, which is one of the core components of Life Cycle Assessment as defined in ISO 14040. According to the ISO 14040 series, LCIA is the phase aimed at understanding and evaluating the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts for a product system throughout the life cycle of the product.
The term "product footprint" has gained widespread use in sustainability communication, particularly with the popularisation of concepts such as carbon footprint, water footprint, and ecological footprint. These specific footprints are examples of product footprints that focus on particular impact categories. A comprehensive product footprint, however, typically encompasses multiple impact category indicators to provide a more complete picture of a product's environmental performance across different environmental issues of concern.
The product footprint builds upon the Life Cycle Inventory analysis result, which catalogues the elementary exchanges (flows between activities and the environment) of a product system. Through characterisation, these elementary exchanges are translated into impact category indicators using characterisation factors derived from characterisation models. This translation allows diverse environmental interventions to be expressed in common units that represent their relative contributions to specific environmental endpoints, such as climate change, human health impacts, ecosystem quality, or resource depletion.
Understanding a product's footprint enables informed decision-making in product development, procurement, and policy-making by revealing the environmental consequences associated with a product throughout its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction through production, use, and end-of-life treatment.
